Today’s daf is sponsored by Ruth Leah Kahan with gratitude to HKB”H for her recovery and return to health one year after being caught in a chlorine gas leak. “Thanks to my family and friends around the world for their unstinting encouragement and support.”
Two further questions are raised against Rav Chisda’s understanding of our Mishna from tannaitic sources. One relates to a case where one is a nazir and possibly became impure and possibly was a leper but is unsure. The other relates to the source for the law that the days of leprosy are not counted as days of the nazirite’s term. There are no resolutions to the difficulties. Rabbi Elazar said in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua that the impurities for which the nazir needs to shave are the same impurities that one is liable by the punishment of karet for entering the Temple. Impurities that the nazir does not need to shave for, are not punishable by karet if one enters the Temple with that state of impurity. Rabbi Meir raises a question on that – why would the latter category of impurity be more lenient than the light impurity of a sheretz, one of the eight creeping creatures who pass on impurity when dead? Why does our Mishna say that Rabbi Elazar quoted this law in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua when in the Tosefta it says that he learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua bar Mamel who heard it from Rabbi Yehoshua? We learn from here that when passing down a halacha in the name of a middle person who heard it from the source, one mentions the source and not the middle person from whom he learned it. Rabbi Akiva questions a law learned previously in the chapter – that a quarter-log of blood does not make a nazir shave. The question is a logical one: if a bone the size of a barley grain causes a nazir to shave, even though it only passes on impurity by touching or carrying, wouldn’t a quarter-log of blood pass that passes on impurity also in a tent, also be a cause for the nazir to shave if he touches or carries it? Rabbi Yehoshua answered that while Rabbi Akiva’s logic may be sound, the tradition passed down is not that way.
